For an exclusive business development event at the Houston Rodeo, we wanted to create a custom invitation suite that could sit alongside the existing Rottet Studio brand, which is elegant, contemporary, and visually clean, while translating the freewheeling spirit of the rodeo. To avoid the childish kitsch of many rodeo themes, we devised a playful yet practical alternative: a red cotton bandana conveying the details of this multi-venue event that guests could also wear to the rodeo itself. The resulting hand-drawn and hand-lettered design is both interactive, encouraging invitees to unfold and rotate the bandana, and also subtly branded, the swirling typography a nod to the company’s Texas roots.
The careful combination of sans serif and rustic typefaces makes this design a tailored deviation from the firm’s standard brand guidelines. Preserving the signature Rottet Studio white and grey color palette, we selected red and tan accent colors to complement the various textural elements. Unfinished wood, recycled paper, and cotton lend an understated ruggedness to the invitations – they’re meant to be touched as much as they are read. The thank you cards feature a variation of the rope lettering, laser-cut onto grey walnut plaques. The smoky, seared typography on the thank you cards evokes traditional cattle branding irons used in the livestock trade. At the end of the night, guests received custom grey and white cowboy boot cookies with the thank you plaque, wrapped together with natural jute twine as a finishing touch.